Community influencers position Dallas as blockchain hub through conferences, meet ups

In recent months, blockchain and cryptocurrency have gone from technical talk to common terms among businesses and innovators. Community influencers like Sunday Ogwu-Chinuwa and Gerald Reihsen hope to start conversation on the future of these topics to Dallas.

A few weeks ago, Ogwu-Chiuwa iniatied these conversations through organizing the first Blockchain & Crytocurrency Con 2018, the first international conference devoted to blockchain technologies in Texas, which took place in Addison.

“It’s the technology of the future,” said Ogwu-Chiuwa. “So it’s better to do something now rather than wait for the future. All companies are looking to see what they can do in the blockchain space.”

The conference brought speakers from around the world that focused related areas from the legal side to technical use cases.

Speakers included business innovators such as Clemens Wan, director of R3, to even local influencers such as Reihsen & Associates Attorney Reihsen.

After first learning about bitcoin after his son bought him some a few years ago, Reihsen decided to attend a meet up in the area on the topic last year, where he spoke to a young man that reminded him of his son at the event who opened his perspective to the potential of the technology.

“We had a long talk, and he explained the basic structure of why cryptocurrency exists and why it has security and why it has liability, and I suddenly saw that if something can support a currency, it can support everything,” said Reihsen. “Being a lawyer, I had a very deep drive to understand how things work. I said, I have got to get a group together to study this legally.”

Reihsen then began a meet up for the Dallas Bar Association called Blockchain Law Study Group, which he quickly then expanded to another meet up for non-lawyers due to interest. He currently hosts four groups: one for lawyers, one for non-lawyers, one for real estate and one for the government concepts as well as speaking at various engagements.

“The way to optimize Dallas’ position in this brand new technology, which it can step into and really start to push, is to enhance that network effect,” said Reihsen. “We need to be proactive about bringing together the financier, the technologist, the entrepreneurs, the marketers, the professionals, the legal people and the accountants. Building and driving the network affect as a human network is the way to make Dallas optimized.”

Like Reihsen, Ogwu-Chiuwa hopes to continue these conversations by hosting the Blockchain & Decentralized Tech SuperSummit to the Dallas area in October.

“We are inviting government officials from all over the world to come and discuss,” said Ogwu-Chiuwa. “We think we an get government officials in the Dallas area, and we hope we can get officials in the Dallas area to come to this conference and see what governments all around the world are actually doing with this technology.”

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